Audiovisual light installation / performance
Dimensions: 240 x 240 cm
Duration: N/A (generative audiovisual composition)
Note: there is also a performance version
Φ8 (Phi8) is an audio visual light installation that is made of 33 lights arranged in a geometry that was designed using two numbers: Φ (golden ratio, divine proportion) a mathematical constant observed in nature, and 8 which symbolises balance. Four interrelated circles of 8 lights, each included by a factor of Φ are being algorithmically animated creating visual patterns and sonic rhythms.
Φ8 is a futuristic object, a perfect circle, an alien automaton, that seems to be communicating in it’s own language. Rhythmically precise light animations are synced with high pitched clicks, that are accented by electrical relay clicking sounds, that is given space by cosmic FM drone sounds. It’s slightly burnt surface warns about the global warming threats humans will face in near future. With almost innumerable ecological issues the world is facing nowadays - the global warming hyperobject - it seems impossible to solve it in a linear way. A universal principle, like Φ needs to be sought after, and other life forms acknowledged, to bring back balance and order (symbolised by the number 8) to people, the world and the nature.
In this work the artist explores electricity as a medium - the incomprehensible speed of it’s physics is related to our own existence, because the nervous system is based upon neurons communicating using electrical signals. The medium always stays neutral, but humans perceive pain and happiness, which is an ever changing illusion, that is given life by the time dimension.
Since the invention of the light bulb that roughly coincides with the beginning of the industrial revolution the pace of the world has increased exponentially, and with it also world energy consumption. Electricity is perhaps, the most, significant part of our everyday life - a medium carrying the pulse of the planet. The work aims to create an unusual, yet simple and direct, and playful experience of the medium.
Φ8 has been showcased in: Sound Days Festival, Kometa Festival, Baltic Burn Festival, White Night Festival and Liepaja Art Forum
